Various types of stanchions have been developed in the past for various uses including display stands and cat scratching or exercise equipment. Such stanchions include those illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,479,990 to Crow for a cat tree; No. 3,479,991 to Lichtenberger for an animal climbing structure; No. 2,143,592 to Baldeck and No. 3,280,527 to Faust. Each of these patents discloses a vertical structure held upright between the floor ceiling by means of resilient axial pressure and including attached shelves or ledges on which cats may climb and play or curios may be placed. However, none of these known devices has been sufficiently durable to satisfactorily withstand the constant jumping and climbing of full-grown cats in the size range or 15 to 20 pounds or the weight of very heavy objects on the ledges. The shelving or perch structures have been known to break or collapse under the weight of a larger cat or art object. Further, the support of stanchions by resilient axial pressure (or ball and socket in the case of Lichtenberger), while satisfactory for vertically applied forces, is totally unsatisfactory for applied forces which include a horizontal component. Merely tightening the stanchion against the ceiling and floor is not the answer because of possible damage to the ceiling.